The Buffalo Sabres welcomed former Sabre Jack Eichel and the Vegas Golden Knights to KeyBank Center on Sunday.
Sabres fans continued their yearly trend of being not-so-welcoming to Eichel, as the boo birds rained down each time he touched the puck.
In the first period, Buffalo had a golden scoring chance on the penalty kill. Vegas turned the puck over at their own blue line; a lazy backwards pass found the stick of Noah Ostlund, who was stopped on a breakaway by Vegas goalie Adin Hill.
Moments later, Hill had another great save on Peyton Krebs, who was wide open at the hash, bringing back memories of Wednesday's loss to Ottawa, where Buffalo was unable to put pucks away early.
The Sabres outshot Vegas 14-6 and were 2 for 2 on the penalty kill at the conclusion of the first period. The Golden Knights also had 8 blocked shots in the opening 20 minutes.
In the second period, Sabres goalie Colten Ellis came up big, stopping William Karlsson on a shorthanded breakaway.
Later in the period, on their fourth power play of the night, Buffalo gave up another breakaway this time to Mitch Marner, but he made no mistake, dekeing out Ellis and scoring the game's first goal.
Seconds after the power play expired, Owen Power turned the puck over to Ivan Barbashev; he skated in from behind the net and dished a clean pass to Eichel, who created a wave of sighs in KeyBank Center as he put Vegas up 2-0.
Buffalo was 0 for 3 on the power play through two periods. The Sabres looked especially sloppy in the second period.
In the third period with 15:34 left, Buffalo would finally get one past Hill. A scrum in front of the net led to a Beck Malenstyn tally, his first goal of the year.
A little over one minute later, Vegas would regain their two-goal lead. Tomas Hertl skated around Power and lifted one past Ellis to make it 3-1 Vegas.
10 minutes into the final period, Hertl scored his second of the game, wristing one top shelf past Ellis, making it 4-1 for the Golden Knights.
That final would hold up; Buffalo dropped to 8-6-3 with the 4-1 loss to Vegas.
Another performance for Buffalo where goaltending was good but the team couldn't match the play in net. Tage Thompson said after the loss that he felt that the team didn't do Ellis any favors on Sunday.
"You know we can't give up two breakaways and a two-on-one and expect that good things are going to happen. Kind of hung him [Ellis] out to dry. He's been playing really well for us." Thompson added, "Just collapsed on him."
Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff added support for Ellis as well.
"It's not on him. It's not on him at all."
Buffalo was one of the top teams at home a year ago; this season they have struggled at KeyBank Center. The Sabres are now 4-5 at home on the season. Malenstyn said they need to match that same intensity at home that they have seen on the road.
"I think it's always a challenge to win on the road, and we've taken a lot of pride in that. But we need to challenge ourselves equally to win at home," he said.
"The hockey that we saw last game and the hockey that we saw to start this game. We need to continue to just play that way through 60 minutes to make this place a hard place to be. We can get energy going that way, and we're going to win hockey games that way. But you know, as we said, that hasn't been the case consistently right now, and that's a really good challenge for us as a group to take that step and make sure that we're making this building hard to play in." Malenstyn said.
Part of struggling at home has been special teams. The Sabres man advantage squashed momentum for Buffalo, especially in the second period in their loss to Vegas.
"I think our power play took the wind right out of our sails," said Ruff.
Next up: A chance to turn things around on special teams and at home. Buffalo hosts the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Other notes:
The Sabres hit a trio of milestones on Sunday. Connor Timmins registered his 200th career game; Josh Norris, his 300th; and captain Rasmus Dahlin, his 600th professional appearance.
Hollywood actor William Fichtner was in attendance on Sunday.
